1973 Slade: Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me

Play this to the uninitiated and, for a few seconds at least, you could probably fool them into believing they're listening to the opening bars of 'Anarchy In The Uk'. The comparison doesn't bear too close an inspection I'll grant you, but there's something about those rolling power chords and clunky bass stabs that sound like a blueprint for the punk classic. And maybe it was at that - Slade had more of an influence on the class of '76 than revisionists would care to admit, but that's a story for another time and another place

As for the song, Slade had by now got the loud verse/even louder chorus format down pat and in that respect, 'Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me' serves up more helpings from the same pot. More of the same then, but slightly less so - there is something naggingly unsatisfactory at work here, and after a few listens I'm finding I can't decide if Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me' is a step sideways or a step backwards. If you forced the issue by holding a gun to my head then I'd have to plump for the latter, and I'd give two reasons for it.

Firstly, the musical balance is off kilter; the verses are slightly too subdued and the chorus slightly too shouty, overdone and obvious, meaning the whole just doesn't flow as well as 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now' or 'Cum On Feel The Noise'. The joints are more visible, the edges more ragged and it lacks that final coat of polish to make it slippery. Second reason would be the lyrics; the two songs namechecked above worked so well because their themes celebrated Slade's own good time laddishness in a way you could take or leave. Tales of love or anything like it were always a banana skin with them and yet that's exactly what 'Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me' is all about, though lust rather than love would be a more accurate description of Holder's tale of teaching a game girl on how she can show him a good time.

But what might seemed like a bit of harmless slap and tickle fun in 1973 now smacks of something rather more misogynistic to modern ears. Fair enough, nobody would ever look up to Holder as a male Andrea Dworkin, and 'Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me' is as much of it's time as the 'Confessions Of' films. And yet the 'And I thought you might like to know, when a girl's meaning yes she says no' winces like a migraine, not least because the distortion of grammar to make the line fit shows that they knew exactly what they wanted to say. There was no excuse for that lads, not even in 1973.

Boiled down to basics, 'Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me' offers as much of a proto metal rush as their best work and it will carry you off like a river in flood if you let it. Only this time it's advisable to close your eyes and hold your nose before jumping headlong in.